


The Heart As Home

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Eugene brings Snafu home, no sad train scene here! However, between Sid and Eugene’s parents, lines get crossed and they both think the other will be going to pick up Eugene.Resulting in no one showing up to pick them up.So what can two boys, home for the first time in ages, one to a place he’s never been before, get up to as they walk to Eugene’s parent’s place? Mostly romantic shit, tbh, but if you want the nitty gritty of it you gotta read!
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Kudos: 16





	The Heart As Home

They had promised they’d be there, well before the train was due to get in. 

However, over two hours had passed, and no one was there. Not his parents, not Sid, no one, and Snafu was beside him looking sweetly concerned. 

“We could ask to use the station’s phone, maybe call-” 

“No. I mean, I know the way. Haven’t been away long enough to forget that, not yet at least. I’m sure they just…something must have happened,” he says, and motions for Snafu to follow him down the road, away from the station, their bags slung heavy over their shoulders. “Sorry about this.” 

“S’alright. Not like my legs are broken or somethin’. How far away is your place?” 

“My parents live near the edge of town,” he winces at the brief, silent pause the information elicits from Snafu. It wasn’t like it was the longest walk they’d ever done, but after a long trip back home, it wasn’t exactly what anyone would want to be doing. 

“Maybe you can tell me what’s good around here then. All the places you’re gonna show me,” Snafu says, bouncing forward the few steps needed to bring them close, walking in time with each other. “And your parents are really gonna be okay with you bringing me home?” 

“I mean…they might not understand all of it,” he admits, thinking of how some of it, he isn’t sure he’s bold enough to tell them right away. How safe he feels with Snafu’s hand in his, how soft Snafu’s lips were on his in the train car, empty except for them as it pulled up to the station in Mobile. How explaining how they fell in love means talking about some of the worst things he’s ever seen, done, and experienced in his life, and how love is what saved him from succumbing to it all. “But they won’t mind a guest. We have the room.” 

“I’m sure I can find a place quick,” Snafu says, talking to him but his eyes all over the street, taking in the signs and businesses. “Can come visit, without bein’ in their hair all the time.” 

“I’m not gonna let them throw you out, you know that, don’t you? If they try that, then I’ll just go with you,” he replies, already hearing the potential argument with his parents in his head, along with the scrape of the pavement under their shoes. 

Then the sound of Snafu’s stops, and he halts and turns. 

Snafu looks…not sad. Not upset, exactly. Shocked. And there are definitely tears starting at the corners of his eyes, those absolutely gorgeous eyes. 

“You…you’d just leave? Even if we had nowhere else to go, no one else to go to?” 

He nods. “Yeah. We’d figure something out. Hell, get another train ticket and go back to New Orleans. Then you could show me around there. We’d find somewhere to settle down.” 

There aren’t many areas to hide away in the area they’re walking through now, residential as it is. But they’re near enough to an alley, and he lets Snafu pull him into it, both of them dropping their bags to the ground. 

He swears, if he listens, he can hear everything Snafu is trying to say as he looks him in the eyes, the tears falling now, even though Snafu hasn’t yet said a thing in response. 

Instead of speaking, he kisses him, briefly, but just so, so that neither of them need to speak. He feels it in that moment, would scream about it from a mountaintop if he could: I’ve found someone and he’s found me and all this time we were each other’s answers to a question we each didn’t realize we were asking, and now I can’t imagine ever being apart from him, and surely I’ll die if I am. 

But there’s only silence as they stand for another few moments, catching their breath, forehead to forehead, fingers intertwined. 

“Gonna be dark soon,” he hums softly. 

“Think you can still navigate in the dark?” Snafu asks, but there’s that shit-eating grin on his face again. “Or are we gonna end up somewhere over the state line?” 

“If we start walking into the ocean, then we’ve gone too far,” he laughs as they break apart, pick up their bags, and move from the alley back down the street. They aren’t even halfway, but he can’t be bothered by that. 

Instead, he’s mesmerized. He watches Snafu bounce just a few steps ahead every now and again as they near the end of the residential areas. He’s talkative again, asking about the local wildlife, and any trails Eugene can show him that will get them there sooner so his parents won’t worry, and he can barely manage to answer, focusing as hard as he is on just enjoying the sound of Snafu’s voice. 

“You payin’ attention to where we are?” Snafu smiles as they turn down another road, now getting closer, at least into the area deemed ‘the edge of town’ by most. “Look like you’re dreamin’.” 

“I am,” he replies.

“What? Dreamin’, or payin’ attention?” 

“Both. Isn’t far now. And I feel like I’m dreamin’,” he says. 

“That so? And why is that?” Snafu gently pulls him off of the edge of the gravel road as a car speeds past them.

“Just…I pictured coming home. Not making it home. Both a thousand different ways. I never had a version where I was this happy, where I had someone I loved coming home with me. So…it feels kind of like a dream, but I’m so glad it’s real.” 

It’s too dark now to see each other well, even with his eyes adjusted to the dark. But he can feel Snafu’s hand reach for his, and grab it tight as they move back onto the gravel, the car long since gone now. 

“…I love you too.” Snafu’s voice is soft in a way he’s never heard before, the closest thing to it the day he got the letter about Deacon dying, and Snafu sat close to him and tried to comfort him, and that small kindness had gotten him through the night. 

The light from the windows of his parent’s home shines like a beacon, and they aren’t even halfway up the circular driveway before his parents come running out, Sid trailing behind them, apologies shouted out into the night air that quiet as they take in the extra person beside him. 

What to do, how to handle the moment, takes a hold of him sharply, unexpectedly. He realizes he doesn’t care about their reactions, or he does, but he doesn’t care about the potential consequences of them. 

Their questions flood around him, and he tries to answer them as quickly as he can. 

“We’re fine, it was a nice walk. I figured something had happened, it isn’t a big deal. Yes, we’re really just fine, Mom. This is Merriell, but he goes by Snafu. He-” his breath catches for just a moment, and his eyes catch Snafu’s, and there’s the feeling of falling, but the sensation of Snafu’s hand still safe in his catches him before he can hit the ground. “He fought with me. Side by side through it all. We want to stay together, be with each other here too.” 

He lets that hang for a moment, watching his parents and Sid, seeing certain wheels turning in their heads. “We care for each other a great deal. I love him. He loves me. We’re happy together. Now, if we can, we’d both like to go inside now and settle in for the night.” 

He knows his parents have more to say, plenty to say, but they don’t say any of it now. 

“We’re so happy to have you home,” his mother breaks the silence first, and steps forward to wrap him in a hug. “Welcome to our home…” 

“You can call me Merriell, if you prefer, ma’am,” Snafu nods. 

“Merriell. We have a guest room, near Eugene’s if you should need it.” 

Snafu blushes, and he can’t hide the smile on his face. Seeing Snafu soft and sweet is something else, something just as wonderful as all the other sides and parts of Snafu, but in the moment is just so cute. 

“I don’t want to put you to too much trouble. I’d be just as fine sleeping on the floor of Eugene’s room as well,” Snafu says. 

It’s an artful dodge around the thing they figured out on the train, as did some other soldiers-being close to someone else, particularly someone deeply cared for, helped keep the nightmares away. And it means Snafu can stay in his room without too much fuss, though he’s sure his mother will bring it up again at some point. 

“Wherever you’re comfortable,” she replies. “Come on inside, set those down. You both must be so tired.” 

Any other questions they might have, they don’t ask that night. His mother has left overs from dinner brought out for them, nearly begging them both to eat more, look at you two, like a set of rails, much too skinny, eat up. His father insists upon helping Sid haul up their bags, even though they both try and protest, to take their own bag and take it upstairs on their own. But finally, after their things are in Eugene’s room and the good-byes are said to Sid, they can sit in his room and breathe. 

“She like that at every meal?” Snafu asks. “I’m not gonna ‘look like a rail’ for very long if she is. Gonna have to roll me around town instead.” 

“You’ll get used to it, and she’ll back off in a few days. Just has to make sure we’re well-fed, or I don’t think she’ll sleep,” he replies as he strips out of his uniform. He considers a shower, but his bed looks far too comfortable to avoid any longer. There’s always the morning, after all, though it’s a slightly foreign thought to him now, familiar but unfamiliar as a result of the months of being filthy with minimal chances to clean up, and each morning not necessarily a guaranteed thing. 

Snafu undresses slowly near him, carefully folding his uniform pieces and setting them near his bag. Before he can say a word, he’s settled on the floor in just his underclothes, using the bag as a pillow. 

“What on earth are you doin’?” 

“Your parents…” Snafu looks to the door, closed and locked. 

“You aren’t sleeping on the floor. I don’t care what they have to say, what they think. Get over here,” he smiles. 

He feels a world away, from the war and from who he was before it, as he curls up in the bed with Snafu, warm limbs entangled as Snafu ends up laying up against him, his head on his chest. And it feels so good, the newness of it all, the knowledge that Snafu will be there with him when he wakes up in the morning, and that they’ll have a hundred, thousand, as many mornings as possible like that together. 

But he doesn’t want to rush any of it, so he snuggles close to Snafu, and falls asleep to the sound of Snafu breathing slowly beside him.


End file.
